Let's look at few examples to understand these basic quantifiers better.
Which regex pattern should be used to match a two-digit year or a four-digit year?
\d{2}|\d{4}
Which regex pattern should be used to match a signed decimal number? The pattern should also match a signed integer number:
^[+-]?\d*\.?\d+$
Here is the breakup of the preceding regex pattern:
- The ^ and $ symbols are the start/end anchors
- The [+-]? pattern makes either the + sign or the - sign (optional because of ?) at the start
- The \d* pattern matches zero or more digits
- The \.? pattern matches an optional dot (.) literally
- The \d+ pattern matches one or more digits
The preceding regex will match all of these inputs:
- .45
- 123789
- 5
- 123.45